In the morning at 10her November 1938, the streets of Germany were covered with thousands of shards of glass, which came from the windows of synagogues, homes and from the windows of Jewish businesses that had been looted and destroyed during the violent incidents that had taken place during the of night. The particularly intense wave of violence soon spread to annexed Austria as well as the newly occupied Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.
Instigated mainly by Nazi Party officials, members of the Assault Squads (Sturmabteilungen or SA) and the Hitler Youth, Kristallnacht depicted a “popular outburst”, according to official statements, which was prompted by the assassination of Ernst von Rath, official of the German embassy in Paris. He had been shot by 17-year-old Herschel Greenspan on November 7, 1938, when the latter learned that his parents were among the thousands of Jews of Polish origin who had been deported by the Reich. Von Rath would die two days later, on November 9, 1938, the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 – a date of great importance to the National Socialist Party – and thus used as a pretext for the attack on the Jews.
Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in a public speech had hinted that a reaction had to be made, resulting in violence breaking out throughout the night. In the early morning hours of 10her November, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Security Police, sent an urgent telegram to the headquarters and departments of the state police, as well as to the heads of the Assault Battalions with instructions, resulting in the involvement of the Battalions and the Hitler Youth in the destruction of houses and Jewish-owned businesses.
The relevant article of “Kathimerini”, on November 11, is typical: “In the early hours of today, riotous demonstrations were organized in Munich against the Jews and many deviant acts were committed against them as a sign of protest against the murder of the secretary of the German embassy in Paris Rat.”
A total of 267 synagogues were destroyed throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. Many synagogues burned throughout the night in the presence of the fire brigade, which intervened only to prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings. Shop windows from approximately 7,500 Jewish-owned shops and businesses were destroyed and their merchandise looted, while many Jewish cemeteries were also desecrated. According to “Kathimerini”, “the fronts of many Jewish shops were broken and several of them were set on fire by the demonstrators. […] Anti-Jewish demonstrations of this kind continued until the 5thher morning time”.
The pogroms in Berlin and Vienna, the two cities with the largest Jewish communities in the German Reich, and the episodes were particularly violent. We read about it: “Many other incidents took place in Berlin where at 2:00 p.m. young people in small groups ran through the various districts of the city breaking the fronts of Jewish shops […] until today’s evening, not one of the Jewish shops in Berlin had remained intact.”
Goebbels then issued a proclamation calling on the German population to “immediately cease demonstrations or actions against Jewry”, as the “definitive answer to the attempt will be given to Jewry through legislation and Decrees”. Tens of thousands of arrested Jews were transported from local prisons to various concentration camps, including Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen.
Kristallnacht essentially marked the beginning of the mass incarceration of Jews and the harbinger of the Holocaust that would follow.
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigone-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
